The percentage of diasporan Nigerians with National Identification Numbers rose to 25.17 per cent in May 2023.

The National Identity Management Commission has registered 427,962 diasporan Nigerians since it launched its diaspora enrolment exercise in 2019.

There were at least 1.7 million Nigerians living in the diaspora according to the World Bank. The global bank disclosed this in its ‘The World Development Report 2023: Migrants, refugees, and societies’, report.

It said, “At a lower level of income, Nigeria is home to almost 1.3 million immigrants and is the origin for 1.7 million emigrants.”

In its May 27, 2023, update, NIMC revealed that the number of diasporan Nigerians in its database hit 427,962, with 178,799 females and 249,163 males.

When NIMC launched the service, it said the exercise was aimed at capturing Nigerians living outside the country into the National Identity Database, ensuring they benefitted from the owning NINs. Without NINs, diasporan Nigerians could not renew their passports, and enrolment was not free

The commission said, “Nigerians abroad, however, also have the choice of enrolling for free whenever they travel back to Nigeria, provided they have valid passports

“Where, however, their passports have expired, they must obtain their NINs as a prerequisite for renewal of their Nigerian international passports or in order to acquire new passports.”

The service is available in 77 foreign countries according to a list on NIMC’s website. 40 of these countries are African, nine are in Asia/Middle East, 23 are in Europe/Oceania, and five are in the American region.

Meanwhile, NIMC has now captured over 100 million Nigerians into its database. It said, “NIMC’s enrolment figures as of May 27, 2023 currently stand at over 100 million unique records. The highest cumulative enrolment figure of over 10.9 million was recorded in Lagos State.”

So far, 43.28 million females and 56.75 million males have NINs. The top five states with NIN enrolments are Lagos with 10.92 million, Kano with 8.84 million, Kaduna with 6.19 million, Ogun with 4.19 million, Oyo with 3.89 million.